


Lay me down in Eden

by caricari



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Has a Penis (Good Omens), Celestial courtship rituals, Crowley Has a Penis (Good Omens), Crowley POV, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), Long romantic walks by the Tiber, Love Confessions, M/M, Non-Penetrative Sex, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Armageddon, Supernatural Elements, aziraphale being a bit of a bastard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:33:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28591071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caricari/pseuds/caricari
Summary: Two supernatural entities go for a walk and Crowley gets more than he bargained for.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 79
Kudos: 249
Collections: Ixnael’s Recommendations, Just Enough Of A Bastard to be Worth Knowing Biblically, Our Own Side





	Lay me down in Eden

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by [ AJ ](https://www.instagram.com/theeyjayy/) who manages to be my friend despite my overenthusiastic use of the em dash. <3

.

“I must confess, I’ve never thought about it like that.”

It is late. The wind is biting through the outer layers of Crowley’s very fashionable but not very insulated coat. They’re walking up a narrow pavement, towards a wide piazza, and the demon is starting to wish he’d brought gloves. 

It’s always cold in Rome this time of year. Not like London, but cold enough. Crowley can remember the first time he travelled this far north in December. The sleet and the wind. Winding alleys and warm little buildings, with golden-lit windows. Aziraphale, wrapped in a toga and furs. 

“I never spent any time in the place when it was a mausoleum,” the angel is saying beside him. “Only once Hadrian had converted it to a fortress.” 

He is dressed in wool, today, walking on Crowley’s left with pink cheeks and bright eyes, chattering on about statues and architecture. He has opinions on the likenesses of the angels lining the bridge, and of the colour of the stone, and handfuls of stories about the artists who shaped them all. 

Art and angels.

Crowley shoves his hands a little deeper into his pockets and watches his friend’s expressions shift in time with his tale. 

Aziraphale has always loved beautiful things. 

The angel’s story finishes as they turn out of the piazza and head across the embankment. They wander along a cobbled pavement, dodging the more tightly packed elements of the crowd. They are still talking about the rotunda as the building is unveiled to them, from behind the trees that line the river.

“Well, I spent a very uncomfortable evening there, once,” Crowley tells the angel, cupping a hand around the end of a cigarette and lighting it with his finger, in a manner that had always caused Aziraphale’s lips to purse in disapproval. “Back when it was a tomb.”

“Oh, really?” 

“Yeah. Downstairs sent me to give a local politician some kind of spectral experience.”

“Oh, Good Lord…” 

“It's every bit what you imagine.”

“Mm.”

“Chills up the spine, things that go ‘bang’ in the dark; the whole ghostly scene.” 

“And that was regular policy, was it?"

"Yup." 

“Mm.”

Crowley takes a drag on the cigarette held pinched between his finger and his thumb — feels the blunt heat of it drawing closer to his skin. 

“I was a bit peeved about the whole thing, actually. Bit below my station. Ended up half-assing it. Draped myself in muslin and let the general aura of the place do the rest.” 

“A truly terrifying vision.”

There is sarcasm in Aziraphale’s voice — the kind he hadn’t known back in the beginning, the kind that had grown in him over centuries, like so many other aspects of humanity. Like the clothes they wear, Crowley thinks. Like the cigarettes he smokes, and the car that they ride around in, and their dinners out at fancy restaurants. Like the strange physical aches of their bodies. 

Crowley glances sideways at the angel. Breathes out a soft curl of smoke into the night.

“I was terrifying, actually. The bloke screamed bloody murder. Tore out of there like the proverbial bat out of the proverbial pit.”

“Most people run when jumped upon in a dark crypt, Crowley. I wouldn’t take it as a glowing review.” 

“It wasn’t just a dark crypt.” Crowley points out. “There was a sinister presence. And sinister incantations."

“Incantations?”

“Well, not real incantations,” the demon waves a hand. “It was just some nonsense in Aramaic — didn’t want anyone to overhear anything that would actually conjure anything — but it gave the whole situation an appropriately threatening vibe.” Leaning back, the demon feels his elbow brush Aziraphale’s. The contact warms him more than it should. “Anyway,” he clears his throat. “Bloody cold place, is my point.”

“I imagine it was — clad only in muslin.”

“I was wearing clothes underneath!”

Aziraphale throws him one of those warm looks that Crowley likes to hold onto on the low days. A fond look. 

“Wanted to scare the bloke,” the demon adds, in a grumble. “Not give him a heart attack.”

He takes another drag on the cigarette as Aziraphale leans his head back and chuckles. 

“Quite right.” He sighs, eyes travelling across the stars. The glow from a nearby streetlamp catches along the crest of his cheeks. 

Crowley watches. 

One day soon, he thinks, the lights here will be switched over to LEDs as they have been in London. Humans are always changing, evolving — shifting the world to meet their needs. Crowley can remember all of the permutations that have come before lightbulbs. He remembers the end of gas lamps. The end of tapers. The end of tallow candles. He remembers the shadows that each and every one of them has cast across Aziraphale’s face. Into the hollows of his cheeks. Down the line of his neck. He remembers the way each and every one of them lit the bridge of the angel’s nose in profile. 

Time is only given context through Aziraphale. 

“Do you think it will snow?” The angel asks — all in one sigh. 

Crowley rolls his eyes. 

Of course. _Snow_. 

Aziraphale loves snow. He loves the aesthetic of it. 

Crowley hates it. Hates the practicalities. The cold and wet. 

“It’s not snowed here for seven years,” he reminds the angel. “And thirty before that.”

“Oh, I know…” Aziraphale eyes the clouds. The sky is a riot of colour; purples painted orange by the city lights below. “The weather has changed over the years, hasn’t it? I remember when the Tiber used to freeze.” 

“The little ice age: a truly horrifying time in the history of bathing.”

Aziraphale chuckles. 

“I was thinking of long before that, actually. Back in the time of Camillus.”

"Mm... very long time ago.”

“It was.”

“In town for the oysters were you?” 

“Trying to sell a book, actually.”

“A likely story…” the demon hisses.

Aziraphale smiles, the movement gathering his cheeks into two round apples. 

“I was.”

“Mmhm.” 

He is dining on supplì, tonight. (They’d finished their oysters in the restaurant, earlier that evening). The nearly empty box is clutched in his hands. The fried rice balls inside it are well crisped and rich in flavour, the mozzarella still hot and stretchy despite their having been purchased nearly an hour ago. They are pretty close to perfect, Crowley thinks, because the world tends to bend itself around Aziraphale. It always has done. 

Colour has always been brighter in his presence. Sound has always been a little clearer. It might have been Crowley’s magic which had drawn them through the city, tonight, hitting all their favourite spots in time to receive a freshly made snack, but it was Aziraphale’s magic which made the items they found a little more perfect. Their respective magics twine around one another — following a pattern they have followed for millennia. 

In the past, this interaction was always a furtive thing — a quick touch and then away — a brief moment of connection. Now, there is an intoxicating possibility to it. Crowley can let himself play along the edges of Aziraphale’s work. He can mess with the wards around the bookshop just for the fun of it. He can write things into them that he would never have dared, two years ago. (Not with Gabriel and Sandalphon dropping by whenever they felt like it). He can drive Aziraphale up to his latest project, in the north of the city, and play with the ambience of the place, for the afternoon. Amp up the natural powers and watch Aziraphale riff off of it. 

They’re not quite working together, not yet. They are still getting used to being able to openly spend time together. But Crowley feels as though they might, one day. There’s potential there. A freedom he’s not used to. A mutual desire for prolonged entanglement. 

“I remember when you used to make it snow, for me.” 

Crowley looks up, reverie broken. 

“Huh?”

“I remember when you used to make it snow,” Aziraphale repeats, dropping his eyes from the sky to watch him. “For me.” 

Crowley stares, caught off guard. He had not been expecting the angel’s words, and to have them voiced so calmly, so straightforwardly — as if this was something they regularly talked about — plucks at something deep inside him. It hits him in the tender place he usually keeps hidden under layers of skin, and muscle, and ribs. 

Dropping his eyes to the ground, Crowley lifts the cigarette to his lips again and breathes through the moment, pretending that his chest hasn’t constricted around his racing heart.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” he mutters at his snakeskin boots. 

Beside him, Aziraphale stops walking.

Crowley stops too. 

“Crowley?” 

The demon takes another breath. Blows it out. Doesn’t look over — despite Aziraphale’s valiant attempt to meet his eyes. 

He’s not sure why he doesn’t want to meet the angel’s eyes. Maybe it’s just that he’s not sure what he will find there. Crowley is a creature of habit, for the most part, and this is not within the usual frame of their interactions. They don’t call one another out on the shared moments, or favours. They don’t talk about the drinks, or the dinner dates, or the times Crowley has ridden to Aziraphale’s rescue despite knowing the angel didn’t really need his help. They don’t do this. 

“You have, Crowley. You know you have.” 

“Ngh.”

“I can even tell you when.” 

“Aziraphale…” 

They’re standing on a bridge. It’s not a metaphor. They had stopped walking halfway across the bridge over the river Tiber, before the towering rotunda of Castel Sant’Angelo. Bernini’s angel statues watch over them from either side. 

It’s a few days after New Year and the lights are still up in all of the squares. The windows in all of the buildings they had walked past are glowing gentle gold. Christmas trees stand in some of them. Crowley can smell spiced wine from the tourist cafe around the corner. He can smell the batter they used to fry the supplì in the box that Aziraphale is still holding. He can smell the cold of water from the river, below, and diesel from passing cars, and Aziraphale. 

He can smell Aziraphale. The angel’s skin, mixed with the aftershave he had only started wearing fifteen years before. 

“You’ve done it three times,” Aziraphale tells him, softly. 

“What does any of this have to do with Roman architecture?” He blusters — an attempt at nonchalance which is so fruitless that Aziraphale doesn’t even deign to acknowledge it. 

“The first time was in seventeen ninety-five,” the angel continues, instead. “We were at the opera. Così fan tutte, if I am not mistaken.” 

They had been walking home afterwards actually, Crowley thinks. They had been winding their way through the narrow alleys of the old city, and it had been freezing — far, far colder than this. Aziraphale had been wrapped in silk skirts and a luxurious fur, waxing lyrical about some aspect of the show. He had been so delighted by it all, enraptured by the night and the story, and Crowley had been, well, enraptured in general… and he’d cracked. 

He’d known that Aziraphale was hoping for snow that night. He always knew when Aziraphale was hoping for something. The angel liked to drop little hints. 

_Oh, wouldn’t it be marvellous if that raincloud would hold off, just a bit longer, so those two young people can have their wedding… Oh, do you know what would pair just perfectly with this steak — that red that we shared in Pompeii… Oh, wouldn’t it be marvellous if someone were to re-discover underfloor heating. This century has been so dreadfully cold…_

Sometimes it was even less than that. Just an overheard comment -

_‘It would take a miracle to get anyone to come and see “Hamlet”.’_

\- and a look. 

It isn't as though he is wrapped around the angel’s golden-ringed pinkie, Crowley thinks, moving over to lean against the wall of the bridge. It's more… well… 

Aziraphale is very good at loving things. It comes naturally to him. He has always been committed to the part of ‘being an angel’ that allows him to care effusively about the world around him. And Crowley… well, Crowley supposes he has always enjoyed being peripherally involved in that love — even in an indirect fashion. In the beginning it was just a taste of something he hadn’t known in a long time. Crowley had basked in the sensation, whenever it had happened. And then, over time, it became something else. 

It started to matter that _he_ was the one to fetch the wine, or to change the rain patterns. It started to matter that Aziraphale felt comfortable enough to hint _to him_ what he might like. Because Crowley had never been allowed to give to the world — the same as Aziraphale had never been allowed to take. It was a mutual acknowledgement that they were both flirting with disaster, here. And it was a sign that their friendship was not entirely a construct of one lonely demon’s imagination. 

So yes. Crowley made it snow, occasionally. He made bad weather fronts abate. Made long-lost vintages available. He timed rain showers so that they would have to duck under storefront awnings on their way home, after dinner, delaying the inevitable moment of parting. He tweaked the circumstances, every now and then. He doesn’t like to admit to it, though. Even now, when called out directly. 

“You gave me a whole blizzard, in eighteen-fifteen,” Aziraphale says, his gaze warming Crowley’s cheek. “I was snowed-in for three days.” 

Crowley remembers. 

They had both been back in London. The angel had needed some excuse to curl up somewhere with a blanket and his books, and Crowley had given it to him. It had been February. Aziraphale had just bought that completely ridiculous hat.

“And then again, in nineteen-seventy.” 

“Oh, leave off…”

“You did.” 

Crowley did. He has no leg to stand on, with nineteen-seventy, and he knows it. He had admitted to making it snow out loud with his own damned mouth, that time. Aziraphale had asked him directly if it was his work and he had said ‘yes'. Because he is an idiot, Crowley reminds himself, staring fixedly at one particular spot on the bridge before them. A soppy idiot. Who had needed the warm glow of thanks that the admission would bring.

“I’ve never done the same for you, have I?” 

The question startles the demon right out of his self deprecation. 

“Eh?” He looks up, wrinkling his nose. “What do you mean?”

Aziraphale is watching him with a strange expression. Something contemplative. Perhaps even a little sad. 

“I’ve never done things for you, the way you’ve done things for me.”

“You’ve never had to,” Crowley frowns. 

“Well, by that logic, neither have you.” Aziraphale tilts his head and then, finally, breaks their gaze. He looks down at his hands. 

Crowley can see a rush of nerves move through him — a characteristic fidget in his fingers. 

“Crowley, you must know that our friendship was never conditional on that. I always thought that was very clear.” Aziraphale pulls at the hem of his waistcoat. “I appreciate it very much of course — all the favours you have done for me and your help, as per The Arrangement — but it was never required…” he chances a look up. “I would have been your friend, either way. You do know that, don’t you?”

Crowley stares. His mouth moves, once or twice, but no sound comes out of it. 

Aziraphale presses his lips together, eyes travelling over Crowley’s face. 

“Sometimes I’m not sure what’s going on in your mind, dear boy,” he murmurs, eventually. 

Crowley chokes out a strained laugh.

“In my mind? I don’t… I… What the Heaven are you on about?”

Biting his lip, Aziraphale turns his face towards the Castel and the statues mounted there, up-lit in gold. There is silence for about ten seconds before he speaks again. 

“Do you remember when we came walking here, back in seventeen sixty? We ate lunch on the bank, beneath the rotunda. You joked about Verschaffelt’s statue at the top.”

“The one of Micheal?” Crowley asks, thoroughly confused by this point. (He’d thought they were having some sort of awful emotion-baring conversation and now Aziraphale wants to bring it back around to art? He isn’t sure what is happening. He isn’t sure if that is better or worse…) 

“Yes.” The angel nods. 

“Uh, right.” Crowley glances up at the building nearby, at the statue at the top. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” 

He remembers the entire night, actually. He remembers arriving in Rome, half cut and a bit fragile after a long few months in Venice. He remembers ‘bumping into' Aziraphale in piazza di Santa Maria after loitering around there all morning, waiting for the angel to emerge from the church. He remembers engineering their route around the city so that he could show off the sights and watch Aziraphale’s eyes light up. They walked for hours that day, just talking.

Art and angels. Aziraphale has always loved beautiful things. 

“It never looked like Mike, if you ask me,” Crowley murmurs, motioning towards the statue. “Even back then. The hair was all wrong. Don’t know what Verschaffelt was thinking-" 

“You said it should be me, up there.” Aziraphale overrides him, gently. 

Crowley’s stomach squirms. 

“Come again?” 

“We were walking and we stopped here. Or just over there, anyway,” Aziraphale motions to the bank. “You pointed out the statue and said that it should have been me that they put up there, instead of Micheal. That it had been me, in the garden, with the sword. You joked about clicking your fingers and remaking the thing in my image.” He is still looking away. Crowley cannot see his expression properly. “You completely disarmed me, Crowley. I don’t think I’d ever felt truly seen until that moment. Everyone else has always considered me a bit of a joke. Well intentioned, perhaps, but a fool. Inconsequential. You were the only one who ever saw me as anything worth remembering.” 

Crowley stares.

The admission is so large that it seems unnatural to hear it encapsulated in human language. A handful of words cradling the implications of six thousand years. 

“Well…” He licks at his lip, trying to corral his breaths into something meaningful. “I, uh… Well, you were there, weren’t you? In the garden… I mean, it’s not just my opinion or anything… It's a fact. It was you who protected the humans. Gave them the sword. Not Micheal or any of the rest of those knobs…” he eyes Aziraphale. “It was you. They should remember.” 

Aziraphale continues to stare up at the statue. Crowley cannot be sure, in the half-light, but he thinks his friend’s cheeks might have gone quite pink. 

There is silence for a few seconds, then Aziraphale gives a little sigh. 

“I laughed at the time, but I secretly wanted you to do it.” He presses his lips together, clearly suppressing a smile. “Gosh, can you imagine? We would have been in such dreadful trouble.” 

“Yeah…” Crowley continues to stare. 

“Your magic, all over a statue of me.” 

“It would have put paid to the cover story that we’d never met.” 

“Rather.” Aziraphale turns back towards him. His cheeks are definitely pink. Definitely flushed. 

“I could still change it, you know.” 

He hadn’t planned the offer. It just sort of slips out of him before he has a chance to stop it, and the blush that follows more than eclipses Aziraphale’s. (He’s glad, in the moment, that his back is to the nearest street lamp and the shadows hide his face).

The only thing for it is to double down, Crowley thinks with a shiver. 

“Would be easy as-" he mimics a snap with his left hand, trying to cover the moment. “Just say the word.” 

Aziraphale’s face creases in a soft laugh, his eyes twinkling. 

“Crowley…” 

“I’ll do it.”

“Don’t be silly.” 

“Come on. You know you want to.” 

“I don’t need a statue, Crowley.”

“Well,” Crowley pulls a face. “No one ever _needs_ a statue…”

“I don’t need any of it.” Aziraphale shakes his head, his eyes still very warm and fixed on Crowley’s face. “The snow. The dinners out. The flash magic. That’s all I’m trying to say.” The smile fades, slightly. The angel looks momentarily worried, and then a little desperate. Then he clears his throat and murmurs, “I only really need you.” 

Crowley’s face performs a strange twisting movement — halfway between a grimace and a grin. The desire to crawl back inside his snake form and slither over the parapets is suddenly overwhelming. He wants to sink below the icy Tiber and not surface again til spring. He wants to stand on the top of the nearest palazzo and shout with joy. 

He does neither. 

“Uh…”

“I mean it,” Aziraphale murmurs, after he has been quiet for ten seconds. The angel’s eyes are shyer, now, but his mouth is moving back towards a smile. His shoulders have relaxed a little. “The rest is lovely. It really is. But having someone who _wants_ to do things for me, who knows me — that is worth more than all of the rest put together. I’m so grateful to have you in my life, Crowley. I love you so very much.” 

Crowley stands still, all of the emotion compacting down inside of him until he feels like a dense ball of matter, at risk of imploding at any moment. He’s seen stars collapse under their own weight, before. He wonders, with a rush of panic, whether this might be something of the same.

“Are you-" Aziraphale shifts slightly, at his side, a little nervous in the aftermath of his grand statement. “Are you okay with me saying this? I suppose I should probably have asked but, well, it felt fitting to say it while we were here and… well…” he breathes out, trails off. 

Crowley blinks around at the world from behind his sunglasses, trying to focus his mind on taking a breath. 

Five seconds pass. Eight. Ten. 

Finally, with an enormous effort, he manages to breathe in. 

“Yeah.” Something releases in his belly — a warm rush which turns into a tingling in his fingers — a shot of adrenaline that leaves him feeling sick and slightly giddy. “Yeah,” he croaks out again, before clearing his throat. “It’s okay.” 

“Okay,” Aziraphale echoes, the relief in his voice matching the smile that breaks over his face — the way his forehead clears of worry lines. “Okay…”

A few heartbeats trickle past. And then a rush more. 

Crowley takes a shaky breath, letting the cold air fill his lungs. The night is churning on around them. People are walking past, chattering happily in their little groups, moving through their lives with the same purposeful purposeless that humans have displayed since the beginning of time. The river continues to flow beneath the bridge. The towering rotunda, with its statue that so poorly resembles the archangel Micheal, continues to stand. 

The air is full of life and noise, and light, and not a single bit of it permeates the moment, for Crowley. It all feels strangely distant. They might as well be hanging in the heavens, alone for lightyears in all directions. 

Alpha centuri. 

An absurd urge to laugh rises up within him. A vicious kind of joy. Maybe they will go one day, then, he thinks. Maybe they’ll go together. 

He swings his head back around to find Aziraphale watching him. 

“Sorry. I-" he gives a little shrug, gestures around. 

Aziraphale’s smile twitches.

“I know.” His left hand is still fiddling with his waistcoat, but his expression is strangely calm. “I rather sprung that on you, didn’t I?” 

“S’alright,” Crowley shoves a hand distractedly through his hair. He feels strangely buoyant — as if his feet are not rooted properly to the ground. He doesn’t quite know what to say. Humour is usually a good bet, though. “Haven’t had an aneurysm in donkey’s years. Was about due, to be honest. Some friend you are, mind...” 

“I’m your _best_ friend,” Aziraphale points out, a hint of mischief in his eyes. 

A grin crawls across Crowley’s face, that buoyant feeling rising into his throat. 

“Yeah, you are. Probably says a lot about me, to be honest.”

“Masochist?” 

“Nah. Good taste.” 

Beside him, Aziraphale gives a low roll of laughter. 

“Oh, shut up…” the demon cringes.

The angel straightens his face, but only for a moment. Then he’s breaking into another series of delighted chuckles and Crowley finds himself joining in. 

The joy of the moment is infectious. The air is cold and clouding with their breaths and they are standing close, up against the edge of the bridge. All he would need to do, to kiss Aziraphale, is turn his shoulder in and lean down, Crowley thinks. 

He lets his eyes drop to his best friend’s mouth. 

He wants to. Fuck, he wants to. He’s been preoccupied by the idea of drawing pleasure out of Aziraphale for more years than he can count — and the idea of tasting laughter on the angel’s lips is intoxicating… But the fear is still there. And he is still not entirely sure that Aziraphale would welcome such an action in public. He’s not entirely sure that Aziraphale would welcome such an action in private. He certainly doesn’t want to find out in a street full of people. 

Standing upright, Crowley pushes himself off from the balustrade, taking a couple of steps onto the pavement before looking back at his friend — trying to force the lightness into his voice. 

“Right. So, are we going to keep going, then, or were you planning on stopping here for the night?” 

Aziraphale is watching him with a distinctly smug expression. A little — ’ _Oh look at you. Look at you squirm. I did that._ ’ — in his eyes. 

It’s a good thing that flustered demons are Aziraphale’s thing, Crowley thinks wryly, shoving his hands into his pockets. There is no way he would have managed to play this off as ‘cool’. 

“Come on, angel,” he mutters, a little softer, nodding towards the road ahead. “It’s getting cold.” 

Aziraphale’s expression softens, too. 

Nodding, he steps forwards, waving one hand to banish his mostly finished box of supplì to a nearby wastepaper basket. Another wave of his hand and he’s gathering a scarf, to wrap around his neck, and drawing up to Crowley and Crowley has to tilt his head down to keep watching his face. 

“Alright then,” the angel says, stepping past him, heading towards the far end of the bridge. “Shall we head up the hill?” 

Crowley follows, trying to remember when the first time was that he wanted to bury his nose in that hair. 

“What do you want to do?” 

“I’m not sure. You?” 

“Dunno.” He feels giddy. 

“We could get a drink?” 

“We could.” 

He imagines them sitting across from one another in some small restaurant. He imagines the incandescent lights overhead and Aziraphale’s eyes catching reflections from a flickering candle. Aziraphale. Aziraphale, who loves him. Who had never felt important, until some stupid joke about putting him up on a statue. Who had never felt seen. 

A drink at some restaurant down the road suddenly doesn’t seem enough. 

“Where would you go?” He asks, a gut-churning need to fix rushing over him. “If you could go anywhere in the world, right now, where would you go?” 

He turns on his heel, walks backward for a few paces. 

Aziraphale watches him with half a smile.

“What do you mean?” 

“What I said — if you could go anywhere, where would you choose?”

“I’m not sure.” 

“Come on. You used to know every quality drinking establishment from here to Istanbul!” 

“I did not.”

“You did. Don’t be modest.” 

“Oh, alright,” Aziraphale admits. “Perhaps I did, once, but I don’t know Rome so well these days. It’s been a while since I visited the area.” 

“It doesn’t have to be Rome, angel.” Crowley’s heart is in his throat, pumping double-time. He is burning with the need to act, to flex into the magic imbued in his bones. He wants to do something for Aziraphale — Aziraphale, who has always been enough to remember, who deserves so much more than this world has given him. Aziraphale, who loves him. “If you could go anywhere in the world,” he asks the angel, “where would you go?” 

Aziraphale steps past him, watching as Crowley turns and follows. They walk a few paces down the street in tandem.

“Pick a place,” the demon tells Aziraphale.

“Are you going to take me there?”

“Maybe.” _I’ll take you anywhere. Anywhere you want to go._ “Pick a place.” 

“Crowley-" 

“Come on. Pick somewhere!” 

They fall into step and Crowley feels something at his wrist. Looking down, he finds Aziraphale’s manicured fingers pressing into his skin. The pale root of his thumbnail is a perfect crescent. 

“Where would you go?” The angel asks him. 

There’s something playful about the question, something intimate about the posture. It’s an invitation of some sort. Crowley isn’t sure what to, but he doesn’t want to miss the opportunity to find out. 

“Dunno,” he shrugs, looking down into the angel’s eyes. “S’not about me.”

“It is. The places I would pick are all places we once went together.”

“Yeah?” 

“Mm.” 

Aziraphale shifts his hand. Crowley exhales as their palms meet — as their fingers wrap and hold. 

There is something instinctive about hands, he thinks, looking down at his best friend’s fingers. They were born into this world already knowing how to use them. Walking had taken some time to get used to, in his human-shaped body, but Crowley had always had that instinct to grip. To hold on. 

“We’ve seen it all, together, haven’t we?” Aziraphale smiles at him. 

“Yeah.” Crowley feels something flip in his belly. Feels a shiver down his back. He’s not sure what they’re doing, but he wants it to continue. There is a giddy feeling of expectation in the air — of teetering on the edge of something. 

“Where would you take me?” Aziraphale asks. 

The light is making halos around Aziraphale’s curls. They’re holding hands for the second time in six thousand years. 

“Alexandria,” Crowley murmurs. The answer comes to him instinctively. As does the idea of what to do next. “Hold on.”

Gripping tightly to the angel’s hand, he reaches into his powers and carves a space out of the reality around them. 

It is just an illusion. (Crowley has always been good at illusion). It is just a trick of reality — speeding their own interpretation up as he slows the rest of it down, in a manner which effectively presses ‘pause’ on time. It’s an old trick. He’s done it before. The next part is more impressive. 

Gripping onto Aziraphale’s hand, he conjures shapes from his memory and bends light, to reflect them into the present. In a moment, they are standing in Alexandria. Not the Alexandria of the present day, but that of two thousand years ago. The streets beneath their feet are dirt and stone, a familiar uneven texture. The air is dusty and shimmering with heat.

Aziraphale exhales his name in delight. 

Crowley burns with pride. 

“Oh, Crowley, look at it all…” Aziraphale beams. “It’s beautiful. It looks just as it was.” 

“Yeah.” 

Crowley remembers. 

The city is imprinted in his memory, from his visits over the years. Aziraphale had long been based in Alexandria and the demon can remember the topography of the city like the back of his mortal hands. He can remember the paths he used to walk, to enter through the Eastern gate. He remembers the little roads that led into the Jewish quarter, where the angel had been lodged. He remembers the library, where Aziraphale had spent most of his days — a little desk, in an alcove, halfway up a staircase, with a window that overlooked the harbour. 

Crowley can remember meeting him there and tempting him out to lunch. Leading him down, through busy streets, to buy fresh bread at the pier. He remembers the pair of them eating on a low wall, watching a rainstorm wash across the horizon, far out to sea. He remembers the wind in Aziraphale’s hair.

“It’s beautiful,” the angel whispers, again. 

“Told you,” Crowley grumbles. “I’ll take you anywhere.” 

“I know, my dear.” 

They stand for half a minute, looking around themselves, watching the shimmering detail of a world long past. Then, Aziraphale turns his head, meeting Crowley’s gaze with a flash of excitement. 

“Can you do Tyre?” 

The demon nods. 

Energy shivers through his spine and out through his fingertips. Reality ripples around them. The reflections change. 

They find themselves standing, hand in hand, in the shadow of a great temple — a Phoenician marketplace brimming with life, just down the road. The air is loud around them. A small band of musicians are playing a familiar song on an instrument which had fallen out of use millennia ago and Crowley can smell salt and tamarisk in the air. 

“Crowley…” Aziraphale steps forwards along the path, in the vision. Crowley follows, tightening his hold on the angel’s hand.

“Don’t go too far,” he murmurs. “I can only hold onto so much.” 

The angel glances back at him, grinning wildly. 

“Of course.” 

He tugs Crowley a little closer to the marketplace, turning on the spot to look up at the buildings that line the street, to reach out and brush his fingers near to the earthen walls, over the stone that lays their foundations. The illusion is a good one. So long as his fingers remain a hair's breadth away, he can feel the heat off them. He can imagine their dusty texture. Tilting his head back, he smiles at the sky Crowley conjured.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Mm.” Crowley's eyes have never left his face. “Where next?” He asks, softly. 

The angel smiles.

“Constantinople?” 

“Okay.”

Breathing deep, Crowley summons the vision and pours it around them, wrapping another protective layer around them and the real world — holding time at bay with a tensing in his spine. 

His muscles are beginning to ache with the effort. He knows that he cannot hold the illusion indefinitely but Aziraphale beaming up at him makes it near impossible to stop. 

“Do you remember this place?” He asks, as they step into his next vision — their footsteps echoing off stone walls, between great columns. The air around them shimmers with steam. 

“The baths of Zeuxippus…” Aziraphale breathes, awed.

“Yeah.” There is a fierce pride licking at the back of his throat. His thumb is pressed into the back of Aziraphale’s hand. He wants to step closer, to pull them together. He wants to press his face into the back of Aziraphale’s neck. Physically present. Together. Skin on skin. “You dragged me here once.”

“If I remember correctly, you didn’t take that much convincing.”

“Well, I am a demon,” Crowley points out. “There’s not much about this place that falls outside a demonic remit. Lazing around in towels. Being slathered in oil and massaged.”

“The humans have always said that it's good for the circulation,” Aziraphale murmurs, but the rebuttal is good natured, rather than argumentative. His lips are curved into a nostalgic smile. “Do you remember these pools, near the back? They used to add salts.”

“And Mint, occasionally.” 

“Yes. It was all tingly.”

“Mm.” Crowley remembers a very long afternoon spent sitting at the back of one of those baths, propped up in a corner, listening to Aziraphale talk and fiddle with the frayed ends of his towel. “You once complained about Sandalphon for four hours, in one of those pools.” 

“I did not…”

“You did so. I looked like a prune by the time we got out.” 

Aziraphale steps forwards, eyes wide, still smiling. 

“I had forgotten about the red tiles.”

“I remembered.” 

“Thank you…”

“For remembering?” The demon scoffs.

“For everything.” Aziraphale throws him a glowing look and this time does not look away. There is something fierce in his eyes — a fire that Crowley has rarely seen before. “Do you remember that oasis, near Sabha?” 

“Yes.” 

“Take me there?” 

“Okay.” 

Crowley steps back, tugging Aziraphale away from the steam and the low light of the baths and out, into the open air. 

He bends light to form the dunes that had lined the oasis in his memory. He conjures fringes of palm that lead down to the water. He lets the night fill with the stars that would have hung, overhead, the last time they had visited this place together — some three thousand years ago. He even matches their reflections in the water.

“We drank here, after travelling for thirty days through rock and sand,” Aziraphale whispers, staring around at it all in wonder. “The water was sweet.” 

“You had dried apricots, in a bag.”

“I did.”

“You shared them with me.” 

“Yes.” 

“There were scores of children in the caravan I was travelling with. They wouldn’t stop bothering you.”

“They wanted to hear stories from the places I’d travelled.”

“They wanted the apricots,” Crowley corrects. 

“Well, that too…”

Aziraphale steps around him, taking it all in. His thumb makes absent circles on the back of Crowley’s hand. 

The demon shivers.

“Where else?” He asks.

Aziraphale turns, using the movement to bring them closer. 

Crowley can feel the warmth of him, the presence of him — more real than this figment they walk through. He can feel him existing outside of a mortal plane. The world around them has always burned with life, but the pair of them burn with something different, he thinks. It is not more, or less, but it is different. They are something other. That they have found a home here, Crowley thinks, is through choice. And no small amount of courage. 

“Babylon,” Aziraphale murmurs, leaning in and brushing the softest kiss against Crowley’s cheek. 

The demon nearly loses the thread of his own magic, plummeting them back into reality, but he catches himself. 

“Okay.” He breathes, swallows. “Babylon it is.”

He builds him gardens, letting foliage rise up in real time around them. He grows creepers and trees, great canopies that stretch up the side of stone buildings. He creates mezzanines that appear to float, and tendrils that hang from them. He pours sunlight through it, lets it dapple the ground and the flowers that grow there. He even creates the illusion of warmth — that thick, fragrant air of a jungle forest. 

Aziraphale breathes it all in with a laugh, tightening his grip on Crowley’s hand. Exclaiming at the detail, he walks the demon through it, fingertips nearly brushing the plants — nearly disturbing the illusion, but not quite. 

“Tangier?” He requests, eventually, wheeling around to look up at Crowley. 

“Okay.”

Crowley takes him to the city in the days of Carthage — to a villa on the outskirts, up on raised ground, so that they can see the lights appear in the windows of the buildings as the sun falls to night. The air is quiet and the wind wraps around them, beating their hair and skin as if it is real. And, when darkness has swallowed the land, Aziraphale turns to him with another request. 

“That encampment where we met, in France?”

Crowley nods. 

“Okay.”

The forest glade is easy to conjure. The memory is only five hundred years old. Crowley laces it with the scent of pine and woodsmoke, and the sensation of snow crunching underfoot. The effect is so good that it gives him deja vu. He’s back there, suddenly, stepping out of an army tent and breathing in the January air, catching sight of the angel walking pale and lightfoot among the trees — a most familiar ghost. 

Hand in hand, they walk on a blanket of pine needles surrounded by the forms of sleeping soldiers. Aziraphale hums a tune they used to hum, around the campfires, in the evenings. 

“Show me Luxor?” He asks, when he’s done. 

“Okay.” 

Crowley folds the world around them and once more they are bathed in light. The stone around them is impossibly smooth. The waters nearby are impossibly blue. They walk around a temple now reclaimed by the desert, reading inscriptions written to gods whose names are long forgotten. They remember them all. 

“Take me to the place I found you after the Great War?” Aziraphale murmurs, when they come back to where they started. “That place in the highlands, where you showed me the clouds.” 

“Sheigra?” 

“Yes.” Stepping up to him, Aziraphale tilts his head back, presses a soft kiss against Crowley’s other cheek. He lingers a little afterwards, this time, the movement a little more sure. “There was a storm.”

“I remember.” 

“Show me?” 

“Okay.”

Crowley brings them to the rocky outcrop over the beach. He calls them a storm from the wilds of the Atlantic. Beside him, Aziraphale tilts his head back and watches, his eyes alight with wonder, his lips slightly parted. Every now and then he glances over, 

It feels like a ritual, Crowley thinks, eyeing his mouth, feeling the burn of holding this illusion in place for too long already. It feels like an incredibly niche courtship dance. Every ask, every move, is bringing them closer. 

“Crowley?” 

“Mm?” The demon turns his head in, nose brushing the angel’s curls. 

“I could never do this, you know,” Aziraphale sighs. “I could never conjure this level of detail.”

“It’s just bending light to reflect what’s already in my head,” Crowley mutters. “It’s nothing fancy.”

“You have always had the most beautiful imagination. Ever since the beginning.” 

“Oh, give over…”

“You have.” There is silence for a minute or so. They lean against one another, watching the storm, Crowley breathing in the scent of his best friend’s hair. Then, “Crowley?”

“Mm.” 

He’s almost shaking with the effort of sustaining the vision and he knows — has sort of always known — what Aziraphale’s last request is going to be. He’s saved up just enough energy to do it justice.

“Take me to Eden?” 

“Okay.”

Gripping tight onto Aziraphale’s hand, the demon reaches into the last vestiges of his power. Then, with a hiss, he carves them directly out of one space and forces them away, through the nothingness, into another. Sound blanks out. Pressure builds. Matter stretches out, and out, and out. And then, it all releases. 

Crowley gulps in air as they stumble forwards into the sand. He nearly loses his footing but Aziraphale’s hands are suddenly at his waist, steadying him. 

“Crowley.” The angel looks up to meet his eyes, expression full of questions. “This isn’t an illusion… this is real.”

“Yeah,” Crowley confirms, breathless. “It’s real.” He gestures around them — at the wide barren desert and the distant mountains — at the stars overhead which are today’s stars, not the stars of the past. “Its funny, but I’ve never been able to fake Eden. I suppose it's because it wasn’t of the Earth. It came from Her, so even the memory is beyond us.” He glances back at the angel. “I can show you were it was, though — the place where those two planes of existence touched. Eden and Earth. The place we first met.” 

“Crowley…” 

Crowley is shaking. A mortal form is not meant to channel such power. The volume of magic required to shift them halfway around the world has left hairs standing up along the length of his arms. Every nerve in his human-shaped body feels prickly and overloaded. He can take it, though, he thinks. He’s happy to take it, if it means Aziraphale will keep looking at him like this. It's an easy trade. 

“Come on,” he smirks, taking a shaky step towards one of the sand dunes. “You asked for Eden. I brought you to Eden.” 

“I only meant for you to show it to me, like you did the others.” Aziraphale sounds exasperated, but he sounds impressed, too. And he’s following Crowley, as the demon scrambles a little way up a dune. “You could have just said that wasn’t possible, rather than spending so much power on one spell. You must be exhausted-, Crowley, will you please be careful up there!”

“Oof.” The demon nearly slips but catches himself. 

“You’ll fall!”

“I won't. Stop fussing. Come up here,” he beckons to the angel. “Come see the view.” 

They make their way up to the top of the dune, where Crowley finds his legs are entirely too weak to remain standing. Flopping down into the sand, he gazes around at the wide desert which had once held the cradle of life, however many thousand years before. 

Aziraphale gives a little sigh and sits down beside him. 

“It is beautiful, my dear,” he murmurs softly. “I’ll give you that.” 

“Mm.” 

It is stunning. 

The dunes are all bathed in blues under an indigo sky and the stars are pinpoint white. The belt of the milky way is a vertical streak over on the horizon to their left. The feel of the place is both wildly alien and intimately familiar. This is the place where they began, Crowley cannot help thinking, as the pins and needles start to leave his body and his heart rate returns to normal. This is where they met.

“You didn’t need to do all of this,” Aziraphale murmurs at his right shoulder. 

“I know.” He stares at the jagged shapes of distant mountains, once visible over the Eastern wall. “I just…” he turns his head, slightly, watching the angel out of his peripheral vision. “I thought, If ever there was a time to show off, this was it.” 

Aziraphale laughs — the noise sudden and joyful in the emptiness of the desert. It echoes off the dunes, disappearing off into the night. When Crowley chances a look up at him, the earlier exasperation in his eyes has been replaced with warmth. 

“My dear boy. You don’t have to show off. That’s what I’ve been trying to say.” 

“Yeah, and all I’ve been trying to say is that I want to, alright?” He squirms slightly, wishing he sounded more sure of himself, more calm. “Always have, around you.” 

Aziraphale’s lips part slightly — perhaps surprised at the admission. 

“That’s my point,” Crowley pushes doggedly on. “I know I don’t have to earn the right to hang around you. I understood that a long time ago. I never thought of it as reciprocal. I just… want to do things for you.” 

“Crowley…” Aziraphale’s expression shifts, longing in it. Reaching up, he brushes a thumb against Crowley’s chin, then seems to catch himself, pulling away.

On impulse — shaky and not entirely sure if he’s brave enough to do so — Crowley reaches out and captures the angel’s hand. 

Aziraphale inhales, sharply, but does not pull back. 

“It’s just a thing.” Crowley murmurs, his stomach trying to escape through his mouth again. “It’s just- I-” He doesn’t know how to finish the statement. He rubs his thumb against the inside of Aziraphale’s palm, instead, trying to commit the texture to memory.

Aziraphale continues to watch him, eyes large. 

“I like it when you show off,” he admits, after a long silence. “It makes me feel like you might want to be looked at. That you might like the way I look at you.” 

The steady whine, which had been sounding in Crowley’s brain for more than five centuries, suddenly reaches fever pitch. Suddenly, he is being tipped over from one plane of existence — where the consequences of his actions clearly outweigh his need — into another plane, where things are less clear. 

He is suddenly, incredibly, potently aware of Aziraphale’s closeness. Of the eager way the angel is playing with his lower lip. Of the bright circles of pink in his cheeks. He’s suddenly very aware that Aziraphale is leaning in, towards him, and there’s never been a better moment to say what he wants — and that, if he doesn’t act now, he’s not only a coward but also an idiot. 

This is it, he thinks. They’re standing on a bridge. Everything he’s ever known is on one side and all the possibilities he’s ever dreamed of are on the other. And he needs to take a step. 

This is it. 

“Fuck,” he murmurs, absent-mindedly, chancing one last look up into the angel’s eyes. “Ok.” He clears his throat. “Listen, I, uh, need to ask you something.” _Jesus fuck. Here goes nothing_ … “The thing is,” he clears his throat again. “You’re my best friend, and we’ve always done what we could to keep one another safe. And that was distance, in the past. And that was ok. But-,” he exhales heavily, watching Aziraphale watch him, the fear building. “Things are different now. So I suppose....” he pushes on. "I suppose what I'm asking is that. Well. Things things can stay the same, if you want. I can do that. But... if you don’t…” he hardly dares to ask it. He hardly dares to speak. “If you want things to change…” 

He falters. 

He doesn’t know how to do this. All of his thoughts are circling and the words don’t seem enough. They are sitting on a sand dune in the ruins of Eden, Aziraphale’s eyes darting between his, and it looks as if the angel is waiting for some signal to run. And Crowley cannot do it. He cannot give him one. He cannot ruin this. But he has to say something. 

“I need to know if you want me to kiss you,” he blurts out, in panic. “Because I want to. And I know people like us probably shouldn’t want those sort of things, but I do. So… so I guess I need to know how you feel about all of that.” 

His words are followed by utter silence. The wind whips through the sand. A piece of brush catches on itself. A bird flaps, somewhere in the middle distance. Crowley’s heartbeat tries to shatter his eardrums. 

Across from him, Aziraphale does not move a muscle. 

Well, that must be it, Crowley thinks, staring across at him. He’s fucked it up. Always knew he would. This would be it. There would be some gentle brush off, then a hundred or so years of distance put between them. A kind-hearted rejection and a thousand years of inching back to where they had been, before Armageddon. It would be-,

“I want you to kiss me.” 

Crowley’s thoughts stop looping abruptly. He blinks in surprise. 

“What?” 

“You are,” Aziraphale squeezes the hand that is clasped around Crowley’s, “a flaming idiot.” He squeezes it again. “And I want you to kiss me.” 

“Oh. Right.” 

They stare at one another for a full ten seconds. Then, the part of Crowley’s brain which is usually responsible for reminding him to breathe takes over. Deciding this is a matter of life or death, his body lurches forwards of its own accord, hand finding the lapel of Aziraphale’s coat. 

“Better,” the angel murmurs, as he moves in — mostly soft, but with a hint of tease. 

Crowley’s throat makes some indignant noise, but his heart isn’t in the rebuttal. His thoughts are entirely focussed on how wonderful it feels, to tilt his head and let his nose nudge against Aziraphale’s — to slide the tip of it into the angel’s cheek — to let their mouths brush and slowly press together. 

There is an incredible release about that first kiss, because it is extraordinary — in the way that only a kiss built up over the ages could be — but it is also just an ordinary kiss. It causes a jolt of pure adrenaline to shoot through Crowley, from belly to groin. It causes all sorts of disgusting gooey hormones to be released from some higher part of his brain. It causes his skin to flush with blood, but it doesn’t change them.

The love still feels the same, the demon thinks, grinning as he pulls back to take a breath, then leans in to kiss Aziraphale deeper. They still feel like them.

“Can I-" Aziraphale is asking something. 

“Huh?” 

“Your glasses.” The angel’s fingers are at the left side of the frame. “Can I take them off?” 

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” 

Crowley feels a rush of nerves as the angel slides them off, then folds them gently into an outer pocket. The world is no more or less bright without the tinted lens. Their only function is as a screen against unwanted attention. But they’re not needed right now, the demon reminds himself. This attention could not be more wanted.

“It’s a little selfish,” Aziraphale murmurs, reaching back up to brush a few strands of hair back into place above his ear. His eyes are tracing over Crowley’s face, over the features the demon likes and the marks that he doesn’t, loving them equally. “But I like to see your eyes.” 

He leans in and kisses Crowley gently, causing a rush of excitement at least equal to that of their first kiss — because this is a choice, Crowley thinks. They are not stumbling into this. They are not drunk, or desperate, and there is no inequality in the consequences of their actions. They are both here by choice.

“Come here.” Aziraphale pulls him closer, until they are awkwardly entangled in one another, on top of their dune, mouths meeting hungrily.

They’re getting the hang of it, the demon thinks, angling closer. He’s tried kissing before, and he knows that Aziraphale has too, but that was with humans and it’s been a while. Crowley had worried they might have forgotten how. But they haven’t. It feels natural, pressed up against one another. It feels natural, to match the angel’s breaths and to lean into the soft noises he makes, parting his own lips just enough to meet the soft explorations of that lovely pink tongue. 

Fuck. Okay. They’re more than getting the hang of this, Crowley thinks. He’s definitely more than a little aroused by this. It’s like being brand new to the Earth again. It’s like being only a couple of decades old and still getting used to the hungers of his new body. He turns his head, nudges forwards — gives a little sigh out through his nose in a response to Aziraphale’s moan. 

_Fuck_. 

There had always been a small part of Crowley which had worried that their attraction to one another was mostly built around taboo — that the novelty would vanish as soon as they were allowed to act on their thoughts — but those worries vanish now along with any dignity the demon might have once owned. There is no shyness as he slides his hands up to Aziraphale’s neck, rubbing at the side of it. There is no collected cool about the way he lifts their joined hands so that Aziraphale can settle better against his side.

“You feel wonderful,” the angel murmurs against the skin of his neck. Crowley squirms slightly. He’s never been called ‘wonderful’ before. 

“Can I touch-" 

“Yes,” Aziraphale answers, before he even finishes the question. Grabbing Crowley’s hand, he lifts it to his side, placing it under the front of his coat. 

So, he’s allowed to touch the soft side of Aziraphale’s chest, Crowley thinks, an absurd urge to laugh rising up his throat. He’s allowed to slide his hand around and dig his fingertips into the angel's lower back, to pull them closer. It’s wonderful. It’s great. He wants more. He wants to be pressed against something. Laid out against a wall, or a bed, or the literal sands of Eden. Anything would do. 

Giving a little groan, he tilts his head and pushes harder against his friend. He kisses for slightly too long, breaking for air after a full minute with a gasp. 

“Alright?” 

“Yeah,” Crowley mumbles, dazed out of his mind. “Yeah, I’m good. This is…”

“Good.”

“This is fucking brilliant.” 

Aziraphale chuckles. 

“I’m glad. You took your time. I was beginning to wonder if you’d gone off the idea.”

Crowley raises an eyebrow. 

“Eh?” 

The smile on Aziraphale’s face widens. 

“It’s been nearly six months,” he clarifies. “Since Armageddon.” 

“Well, it’s not like… it's not…” Crowley’s eyes follow the movements of the angel’s mouth as he tilts his head, a snake well charmed. “It was never clear where we stood, after, was it?”

“Until tonight.” 

“What do you mean until tonight?” 

“I invited you to Rome," the angel points out. "I even suggested oysters.”

“Wh-, Is that some sort of code?” 

“Well, no, but...” the angel eyes him. “It was a bit of a date if you look at it. Drinks at that nice little place, before dinner. A walk along the river, afterwards, under the lights. It was all very romantic.” His eyes dart between Crowley’s. “Then I told you about the statue. I told you that I loved you.” 

“Well, I did start to cotton on, at that point,” Crowley admits. 

“Only then?” Aziraphale looks indignant. 

Warmth floods the demon’s abdomen. 

“Yes ‘only then’,” he grumbles, stroking along his best friend’s jaw with a slightly rough thumb. “Angel, I’ve been taking you out to dinner with increasingly romantic overtones for two thousand years… How was I to know that tonight was any different?” 

Aziraphale is watching him with wide, innocent eyes. 

“I was trying not to be too obvious.”

They stare at one another for a whole ten seconds. Then Crowley starts to laugh. It sort of bubbles up from within him and takes control — leaving no room for breath or embarrassment. 

It’s just all too much, all of a sudden. Here he is, in the land which had once held Eden, kissing his best friend under a cloudless sky. His friend, who has been staring at him with blown pupils since sometime around the turn of the first millennium. His friend, who has spent the last few centuries letting himself be wined and dined and taken out around town, and thanking Crowley with softness in his eyes every time. His friend who has been flirting outrageously ever since he realised that Crowley would flirt back. His clever, beautiful, ridiculous friend who was ‘trying not to be too obvious’. 

The demon gives another titter of laughter. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale gives him a reproachful shove in the shoulder. He is clearly trying to sound scandalised, but the demon can hear laughter hiding in his voice. “Oh, you horrid creature, stop laughing at me! I just wanted it to seem natural, rather than something I’d planned.” Crowley’s laughter redoubles. “I wanted to set a scene. I-, Oh, shut up, Crowley!” 

But Crowley just laughs harder. And soon his friend is laughing, too. Laughing, as he rolls Crowley back into the sand and pins him there, in a gentle mockery of punishment. Laughing, as their mouths find one another’s mouths, and their jubilation slides into a series of quick, wet kisses. 

“Don’t see why I should have to spell everything out for you…”

“You’re such a prat,” 

“I don’t think-"

“Just tell me, alright?” Crowley growls, between kisses. “Just bloody tell me what you want from me.”

“I want you to shut up!”

“Mm’kay…”

He’s got his hands in Aziraphale’s hair. The angel’s belly pushing down into the front of him and the sand at his back is holding him firm. He could stay here forever, Crowley thinks, vaguely. 

“I want you to keep kissing me,” Aziraphale says, breathless, as he breaks from a kiss to look down at him. “Quite possibly until the end of time.” 

Their faces are only a few inches apart. Crowley can pick out the fine network of lines around the angel’s eyes. He can trace a divot between his brows up to the soft furrows in his forehead. He wants to reach up and smooth them, kiss the crows feet, roll Aziraphale over and crowd him down against some surface — block out the rest of the world. He wants to curl up somewhere where only he can see him. 

“Take me home then,” he murmurs, brushing the underside of the angel’s chin. “I’ll kiss you as long as you like. Wherever you like,” he adds, startling himself with his boldness. Then, deciding he might as well commit to the point, adds; “I reckon I might be convinced to part with my clothing, if we were somewhere less sandy.” 

Silence falls between them. Aziraphale bites at his lip. Crowley watches the micro expressions flit across his friend’s face, feeling a rush of uncertainty that all but chases the humour of the situation away. 

“Suppose I don’t know if you’re interested in any of that,” he murmurs, after a few seconds have passed. “I never asked… You might not be.” 

“I am.” 

“Oh.” His skin feels a bit too uncomfortably tight, all of a sudden. A bit too warm. “Right.”

Aziraphale’s gaze slides down the bridge of his nose, to his mouth. 

Crowley swallows, feeling very observed. 

“Would you like me to take you home?” The angel asks, softly. 

The answer to that seems rather self explanatory, to Crowley, but he’s not above shutting up when he thinks it might work to his benefit. He nods enthusiastically, flexing into Aziraphale’s grip. 

“Your place or mine?” The angel places a kiss against the corner of his mouth. “I don’t mind which.” 

Crowley does — just a little. There’s something comforting about the idea of being on home ground for this. 

“Uh, mine…” Trying to keep his thoughts from bounding over one another, he scrapes around inside his mind for a next step, a next action. “We might need to jump it in a few moves, though. I’m tapped out from all of that illusion nonsense, and if we hit the wards before-" 

“Hold on.” 

Aziraphale pushes a hand under the back of his hips, scooping him off the sand. There is a sudden sensation of compression — the type Crowley associates with strong magic. He opens his mouth to say something but the air is pulled away from him. He's falling through nothing as the world squeezes in. The only thing he can feel is the warmth of an angel. Then, the world folds back around them.

“Heh-" He breathes out, feeling his shoulders press against something warm and soft. The familiar scent of his bedroom is wrapped around them and Aziraphale is suddenly visible through the half gloom. “Hey,” he breathes in, digging fingertips into the wool of the angel's coat. “Shit. Wow. That was something.” 

Aziraphale laughs, softly. 

They are still wrapped in their outerwear. Crowley reaches up reflexively for his glasses before realising that they are already stowed in Aziraphale’s pocket.

He clears his throat, stares up into his friend’s eager face. 

“Did you just snap us all the way back here in one go?” 

“Yes.” Aziraphale smiles.

“How the-" the demon frowns. “Wait. Did you blast through all of my protective wards? I spent three days putting those up!” 

“I put them back again,” Aziraphale replies, in a voice which might be mistaken for petulant, under the right circumstances, (but which, under present circumstances, sounds much more like a tease). “No harm done.” Tilting his head in, he presses a little kiss against the side of Crowley’s neck while the demon wriggles an arm free and tries to decide whether he’s more intimidated or aroused. 

It’s both, he decides, as his hands slide up to the back of his friend’s shoulders, feeling the breadth of him — feeling the physical softness that juxtaposes with the astronomical celestial strength of him. Of course it’s fucking both.

“Am I going to find sand all over my bed?” He bitches anyway, as Aziraphale works a hand into his jacket, unbuttoning the waistcoat underneath. 

“No. You’ll find anything that came with us has been removed from our clothes and has kindly taken the form of that vase on your bedside table.” 

Crowley wrinkles his nose, craning his neck to look over. Sure enough, there is a glass vase sitting on the side table. It is intricately made, with scalloped edges and a fussy Victorian pattern which wouldn’t normally be allowed within five miles of Crowley’s usual decorating style. It is very Aziraphale. 

“Well, that’s going to look stunning in my glass cabinet,” he snarks, turning back around. “I’ll pop it just under the Hummel figurines.” His sarcasm doesn’t have time to land, however, before the angel has covered his mouth in a kiss and pressed him into the sheets. “Mm’fuck…” 

Aziraphale is strong. He’s always been strong and there is something very enticing about being pressed underneath him, feeling the hard edges of his wrists move as his fingers flex over buttons and zippers. Feeling him tug layer after layer up, until they are forced to disentangle their mouths so Crowley can wriggle free of it all.

They make quick work of the jacket, waistcoat and shirt, then move on to Aziraphale’s clothes. The coat is sent to drape over a nearby chair, with a flick of a wrist. The waistcoat follows, arriving in a neatly folded pile. Crowley mutters something about showing off, but the angel distracts him with a request to help with his bow tie. 

Their fingers tangle in the tartan, they laugh more than they should, and before Crowley is entirely sure how it’s happened, Aziraphale is down to boxers and a vest and has shuffled up to sit beside him, against the headboard. 

“What now?” He asks, breathless. 

Crowley lets out a helpless little laugh — a hybrid child of need and fear. 

“Don’t ask me. I’ve not done this in years.”

“You have done this before, though?” The angel asks, giving him a little look, a little check-in. 

“Yeah, sure. You?” 

“Yes. A few times.”

“Cool… me too.” 

They eye one another.

As Aziraphale lies back, arranging himself against the pillows, Crowley picks his way over. There’s a rising instinct to be close, to protect. This is Aziraphale without the armour — without the clothes he has wrapped defensively around him for the past however-many years. The angel has been clad in cream wool for the last several centuries, the demon thinks. And, before that, pale satins and silks. Bleached linen and cotton robes. 

Maybe togas will come back in again, one day, Crowley thinks, running a covetous fingertip up the inside of his friend’s arm. Wouldn’t that be a thing…

“What do you like, with other people?” 

“Doesn’t matter,” Crowley dips his head down to press a kiss against his friend’s shoulder, drunk on the idea that he can do this — still glancing up before every move to gauge the angel’s comfort. “That was other people. This is us.” 

“Yes.” Aziraphale’s face does a little frown-grin combination, which tells Crowley he is also feeling the surreality of the moment. “It is.” 

His eyes are travelling over Crowley’s naked torso, over the arms the demon has always felt are slightly too long, and the trail of hair down his belly that doesn’t quite connect up with the stuff on his chest, and the slightly obscene way his trousers are stretched over his cock. 

“Do you like penetrative sex?” 

The smallest, naivest part of Crowley — the part which had always tried to keep Aziraphale separate from the rest of the world, untouchable on his pedestal — dies a tiny death inside of him. The rest of him vibrates with interest. 

Taking a deep breath, he regards the angel lying beside him — his equal in all of this — and nods. 

“Yeah. I’ve liked it before.” He feels as if he’s over-selling his experience, as he says it. “I’ve tried it a couple ways.” 

“You’ll have to teach me.” 

“Angel, you spent half of the nineteenth century making your way around London’s finest dancing establishments. I’m fairly sure you’re going to be teaching me, here.” 

“Not at all, dear boy,” Aziraphale sighs, tilting his head to lie on one shoulder. “I wasted every opportunity I had there by pining. Everyone was under the impression I was unrequitedly in love with a married man. It was all dreadfully dramatic.”

“Yeah?” It soothes his ego slightly. It shouldn’t — it is nasty and jealous and very unbecoming — but it soothes him nonetheless. 

“Yes.” 

Warm fingertips slide up to play with the hard ridges of his collarbone. 

Crowley tilts his head down, watching the hairs on the back of Aziraphale’s forearm glitter in the light cast by the candles his friend has summoned to the windowsill. If he was any more in control, he thinks, he’d bitch about the fact that they are flavouring the air of his dark and impressive bedroom with a delicate vanilla — but he’s not really got it in him. Not when the scent reminds him of Aziraphale. Not when Aziraphale is warm in his bed, soft fingers skating over his chest. 

“It really was only ever you, you know.” Looking up, he finds the angel's pupils focussed on him, very wide in the dark. “The humans I was with… I cared for them deeply. They were lovely people, but they weren’t you.” 

“I’ve only done this three times,” Crowley mutters, the words spilling out of him involuntarily, in response to Aziraphale’s confession. “I mean, I’ve done other stuff, fooled around — but I’ve only done anything more three times. So, I don’t…” he clears his throat. “I don’t really know what I’m doing.” 

Aziraphale’s face breaks into a smile. 

“Well, that makes two of us then,” he slides his hand around the side of Crowley’s hip and squeezes. “I imagine it does give me a better chance of making it a success for you, though.” 

The demon squirms against the inseam of his jeans. 

“Yeah, I really don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

“No?” 

“No, I’ve had a bit of a thing for you for a while.” 

“Have you now?” 

“Yeah,” he pulls a face at the opposite wall. “S’not a big deal though… Think I’m going to try and style it out.” 

Aziraphale chuckles, then rubs a thumb against his side.

A few moments pass.

“Would you like to just let this play out then? See how we go?” He gives a little wave of his hand which seems to indicate ‘them’ and ‘sex’. “We don’t have to decide on anything upfront.” 

Crowley eyes him. 

“Yeah,” he admits, eventually. “I would, but I don’t want to push or,” the words ‘go too fast’ are hovering on the tip of his tongue. He shrugs. “You know...” 

Aziraphale seems to understand.

“Come here.” 

Warm fingertips tuck under the waistband of Crowley’s jeans, tugging him gently forwards. 

“You sure?” 

“It’s okay, darling…” 

Aziraphale guides him in between his legs and Crowley is treated to the brand new sensation of the angel’s belly against his own — Aziraphale’s vest having ridden up so that the soft fuzz around his navel is exposed. 

It is lovelier than he had ever imagined, (despite having imagined it a truly embarrassing number of times). Aziraphale is indescribably warm. His thigh, pressed against the outside of Crowley’s hip, is strong and warm. His hands, cupping the back of Crowley’s head, are soft and warm. His lips, pressed against Crowley’s lips, are wet and warm. His tongue is hot. 

“Okay? he asks Crowley, between ever-more-desperate kisses. 

“Mmm’yeah.” Crowley tilts his head, rubbing their cheeks together as he shuffles forwards on the mattress. “Can I take these off?” He tugs at the hem of the vest. 

“Yes. I can-" Aziraphale moves to snap, but the demon grumbles and nudges his hand back down, recaptures his mouth in a kiss.

“Don’t you dare. I’ve been imagining this for six thousand years.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah. It was bloody confusing, back in the beginning,” he mutters. "We weren’t friends. We didn’t even get on. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me.” 

“Well,” the angel flicks an eyebrow. “The jury’s still out on that one.”

“Oi!” Pushing hands under the vest, Crowley slides it up, peeling Aziraphale free of his clothes as he mutters a rebuke under his breath. “It kills me that you’re meaner than me, you know? Everyone thinks you’re saccharine sweet, angel, but you’re actually a bastard. You’re grumpy, and you’re stubborn, and you almost never pick up the bill when we go out for drinks. You mock my hair, and my clothes-"

“And your facial hair, when the occasion calls for it,” Aziraphale points out, pulling his head free from the neck of his vest and wriggling back down to kiss Crowley’s left nipple. 

“Mm-!” The demon gives him five seconds to mouth gently over it, then the sensation becomes too much and he squirms away. “You also think you are about thirteen times funnier than you actually are,” he continues, starting to slide Aziraphale’s white cotton underwear down his legs. “Which is a pretty good indicator of how irritating a person is, in general. I think you’re mainly getting by on your good looks.” 

“Likewise,” the angel breathes, letting his head fall back to the pillows as Crowley teases the undergarments free over his ankles andleans in to kiss his ankle. “Oh, Crowley…” 

There is something intoxicating in making the angel sigh out his name, something that makes him feel incredibly powerful — and with the power comes a burning need to prove himself. He wants to make this right, to make it worth the wait. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but he’s willing to make a complete tit of himself if it means he gets to hear Aziraphale whimper ‘oh Crowley’ again. 

Yeah, he’s going to make this good, Crowley decides, with a shiver. He’s a demon, after all. He’s been places, seen things. He knows the theory even if he’s not got the practice to back it up. He’s going to make this feel good. 

“This okay?” He kisses the inside of Aziraphale’s knee, along the little crease there. 

“Yes…” Aziraphale exhales slowly. 

His cock is lying in the crease of his leg. Crowley can see it fattening up for him, skin flushing dark. He remembers the first time he’d figured out how to make the same happen, with his own body — sitting with his back against a tree and his robes pulled up around his waist, hands unpracticed and unsure. He remembers the fearful uncertainty of it all. The growing tension. The overwhelming relief. The bright, clean pleasure, so sharp that it cut through the rest of Earth’s sensations. He remembers sitting in the aftermath with heartbeats that didn’t feel like they’d ever slow down. 

He wonders how long it had taken him to think of Aziraphale, during. Probably not very long, Crowley decides, leaning in, pressing his mouth to one of the angel’s full thighs. There had always been something there for him. Even before it was love. There was always something. 

“Can I use my mouth?” He rubs a thumb across the skin that he’s been kissing, watching the skin beneath it come up pink. 

“Yes. Wherever you like.” 

“Wherever?” He throws a little tease up as he pulls himself to his knees, crawling over the angel. 

“Wherever.” Aziraphale’s eyes sparkle when he meets them. “You need to get rid of these, though.” The angel’s fingers tug at the buckle of his belt. “As soon as conveniently possible.” 

“Done.” 

He’s got a hand down between them before Aziraphale has even finished the sentence, tugging the belt free of its buckle, then the top button free from his jeans. Laughing into one another’s mouths, they push them down, taking Crowley's pants with them. The demon is relieved for the dark of the room that hides the fact that they’re probably the least erotic in his wardrobe. It’s just his luck. He’s got lace and silk and all sorts stored in the cabinet on the other side of the room — but of course he chose tonight to wear a pair in faded pink.

Aziraphale doesn’t spare a moment’s thought for them, however. He’s hooked a foot into Crowley's jeans and is busy shoving them down his legs, kissing the demon’s smiling mouth as they struggle to get his feet free, sliding hands down around him to tug him back up once they’re done, laying them flush. 

Flush is something else, Crowley thinks, heat rushing through him. Flush is sublime. Aziraphale is warm. His chest is covered in the same soft fuzz that covers his belly and his cock is pressed just under Crowley’s navel. And _that’s_ amazing. It’s hot and hard and touching it shouldn’t mean anything more than touching his elbow or his knee, but it does. There are loads of societal implications involved, Crowley thinks. And hormones. And nerve endings. They are driving his heartbeat faster. Faster.

He is fairly sure that Aziraphale could measure his pulse through his skin.

“Crowley… Crowley...” 

“Mm?” 

“Oh. Nothing.” The angel gives a nervous laugh. “Sorry, I do blabber on, don’t I?”

“S’okay.”

It’s perfect, actually, the demon thinks, dipping his head down to brush Aziraphale’s left nipple with his lips. It’s perfect that the angel talks during because Crowley keeps forgetting that this is actually happening — that this is actually Aziraphale. His angel. Sighing happily under his hands. Pressing eagerly into his mouth. His best friend. 

It’s perfect that he talks, Crowley thinks, doing something completely inhuman with his tongue and causing the angel to throw his head back and mumble a string of praise. It’s perfect that he makes little clutching movements with his hands, drawing Crowley closer. It’s perfect that he pulls his leg back, to allow the demon to curl over him better — to grind against the underside of his thigh better. It’s perfect. It’s all perfect. Crowley needs more. 

“Mmfh. Stay there a second,” he tells Aziraphale, reluctantly drawing back from him to crawl over to the bedside table. One hand steadying himself against the headboard, he roots through top drawer. “Gotcha…” he grabs the bottle, flicks the cap, upends far too much into his palm. It drips on the sheets — enough to leave a mark. 

Fuck it, he thinks, not pausing to snap it clean. What are a few marks? He can buy new sheets. He can fold these sheets and keep them in the safe, forever — evidence that this actually happened — that it isn’t another whisky-induced dream. 

Dropping the bottle back in the drawer, he crawls over to Aziraphale, leaning in to share a kiss.

“This okay?” 

“Yes.” 

Reaching a slick palm between them, the demon wraps his hand gently around Aziraphale’s cock and squeezes along his length. 

“Oh, Crowley…” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yes. Darling, yes.” 

_Shitting hell._

Power ripples through his veins. He feels suddenly like some heathen god — something dreamed into being by human magic. He is Inanna Ishtar, wrapped in skin and bone, pulsing with blood and life. He is Aphrodite, embodiment of desire, thrilling with feel, and touch, and taste. He can smell Aziraphale — the sweat in the crease of the angel’s bent leg, and in the curve of his back. Dropping his head down, he can drink in the stronger scent in the crook of his neck. 

They can opt out of this, he thinks, dimly. They can choose not to sweat. They can choose not to let their hearts beat, or their lungs stretch. They can choose their skin not to ache with the need to strike nerve endings and spark pleasure — but they choose to feel it, instead. They choose this. 

He chooses to lean back up and kiss the angel, catching him between his gasping breaths. He stays quiet, listening to the soft utterances of his name, listening to Aziraphale’s soft encouragements grow faster and more uncontained.

“Yes, there.”

“More?” 

“Oh, that’s perfect, darling. You’re so perfect.” 

“Do you want me to use my mouth?” He murmurs as the angel begins to arch into his every stroke, fingertips digging into the outside of his hip. They are belly to belly and he’s barely got room to move his hand in between because Aziraphale keeps trying to press closer, to kiss him deeper. “Angel?”

“Crowley?”

“I can lick you, angel. I know that feels good. I can swallow you right down.”

“Yes, yes…” 

He slides his hand out from between them, preparing to shuffle down, but gets distracted by Aziraphale’s little grasping movements at his hip. He lets the angel pull them closer, instead, rutting against his belly. 

“Okay,” his mouth is curving into a smile. He cannot help but lean in and kiss him more. Beautiful, beautiful impatient angel. “Aziraphale.” 

The angel gives a little whimper at his name. 

Crowley kisses him harder. 

“Aziraphale...”

It is mesmerising. There is saliva smeared around their mouths and sweat dampening their hair. Their breaths are tearing from them, more like panting gasps. Under any other circumstance it would be ridiculous to allow their bodies to take over like this, but sense has gone out the window. Sensation is overwhelming. All Crowley wants — all he needs — is to see the angel cry out in pleasure.

“This tongue was supposed to be a curse,” he murmurs against the angel’s lips. “But it’s not, for you. It can be good for you…” Sliding a hand further around Aziraphale’s back, he presses him into his belly. “I can be good for you…” he grins. “Or bad… Whichever you prefer.” 

Aziraphale gives a lovely little groan, right into his mouth. 

Crowley thrills with power.

“Do you want that, angel?” 

‘Yes…” 

“You want me?” 

“Yes, ye-” Aziraphale gives a shudder, then his expression shifts from overwhelmed to surprised. “Oh fuck Crowley,” he mutters. “I think I’m going to-"

It’s fairly evident what he’s going to do — as his hand grips down on Crowley’s hip and his forehead creases. There’s a line deepening between his brows. The pink wetness of his mouth opens, lips forming an almost-perfect ‘o’.

A wave of pride and lust rushes through Crowley. 

“Shit, yeah, alright.” Sliding a hand back down between them, he squeezes the angel’s cock into his palm, setting a steady pace. “There you are, beautiful. Come for me. Come…” 

Aziraphale whimpers. 

“Crowley,”

“Yesss, that’sss it.” 

“Ohh!” 

Aziraphale clutches at him, making a low noise at the back of his throat that Crowley will remember for the next foreseeable stretch of existence. Then, the angel is shuddering against him and Crowley feels the wetness of his release hit his belly. He feels it spill over his fingers as Aziraphale pushes further into his grip, feels him come into the crease of his leg, feels it collect there, warm. 

“Oh, Crowley, Crowley… oh…” 

“Yessss.” Heat is pooling in Crowley’s abdomen — a mixture of pride and delight. He’s grinning, looking down at Aziraphale, not bothered the slightest that his own climax is starting to draw away from him again. Not bothering that the angel is holding onto his hip tight enough to bruise and they are both going to be cold and sticky in approximately two minutes’ time. This is perfect. Utterly perfect. 

Aziraphale’s mouth changes shape, falling out of its neat little ‘o’. 

“Uhh…” 

“There you are,” the demon murmurs, looking down at him, admiring the fringe of his eyelashes as they lie against his cheek.

Aziraphale comes back from it slowly, blinking himself back to consciousness with a series of little sighs and moans. After half a minute, he squeezes Crowley’s side and turns his head to focus on the demon properly. 

“Well…” he sighs, voice lethargic and full of liquid pleasure. “Dear me.” 

Crowley laughs. 

“Dear you, indeed.” 

He leans in. They kiss a few times, mouths gentle between their still-laboured breaths. Then, Aziraphale smiles and releases his grip on Crowley’s side, flopping back against the cushions. Rolling onto his back as well, Crowley slides his hand out from between them, wiping it surreptitiously clean on the bedsheets. 

“Well, that was new,” he sighs. “Never done that for someone else, before.”

“You’re a natural,” Aziraphale pants, rubbing a hand over his face.

Crowley snorts with laughter. 

“Thanks.”

“Mm.”

A few moments pass. 

Letting his head flop over, Crowley eyes what he can see of his friend’s face over the pillows. 

“Was it really okay?” 

“Crowley…” Aziraphale’s face breaks into the widest grin. He rolls his eyes up at the sky. 

“What? I just wanted to check,” the demon grumbles, eyes tracing over him — along the lines of his bones, and his fat, and the sinews at his ankles and wrists. There is a patch of something wet at his hip.

Pulling himself up on one elbow, the demon leans closer. They are in that odd period after sex, where the lines feel blurred and he’s not sure how much he’s allowed to touch. Reaching out, he leaves his hand on the bed between them — a query for contact that Aziraphale answers with the smallest, warmest smile. 

“I never used my mouth.” His fingers reach for the little patch of wet, touch it lightly, feeling the uneven texture of the skin underneath. Aziraphale’s stretch marks — the palest pink. “Usually, I'm a demon of my word.” 

“I didn’t give you much of a chance, dear.” 

“Still…” 

He looks up. The angel is watching him, eagerly. 

Taking the lightness in his eyes as permission, Crowley leans in, pressing his mouth against the wet patch at his hip. He kisses Aziraphale’s skin, running his tongue over the spot afterwards. 

It’s not a bad taste. It’s not the best thing Crowley has ever put in his mouth, but there’s a thrill about being allowed to taste it — an intimacy in cleaning up the product of their pleasure. Aziraphale is sweeter than the humans Crowley has previously sampled. That briny saltiness is still there, but the aftertaste isn’t. There’s an overtone of something that has no other description but ‘angel’. Almost-ozone. Sharp and bright. 

Giving a little hum, he tilts his face back, kissing beneath Aziraphale’s navel, then the swell of skin above it. It is soft to the touch, covered in a layer of pale blonde hair which gets darker the further it travels between his legs. His ass is wider than Crowley’s fingers are wide — something the demon had no idea he particularly valued until he’s there, in the moment, stroking reverent hands over him. 

“Fuck,” he murmurs, mouth still resting against skin. “You are beautiful.” 

Fingers slide into his hair, rubbing appreciatively at the back of his scalp. 

“I’ve always wanted to do this…” he strokes hands down, along the angel’s lower back, around his sides. “Always wanted to touch you. Thought I was a bit daft for it. I mean, they’re just bodies, aren't they? It’s not really ‘us’.” 

“We’re just energy, Crowley,” Aziraphale sighs, happily. “Just as the humans are. We are all just energy wrapped in a shell — and this world is a physical one, so our physical bodies matter. They are what allow us to be a part of it all.” 

The demon leans in again, kisses reverently up his friend’s chest, traces his fingers around the back of him to feel the dampness of sweat that has grown there. 

“That’s what I always liked best about this world,” he murmurs, after a time. “Sensation.” 

“Yes,” Aziraphale sounds like he’s smiling. Crowley does not lift his face from against his belly to find out. “It is what I like best as well.” His hands are still in Crowley’s hair, stroking. “Everything in Heaven was impersonal, but down here I could feel things all of my own. I was bound by so many rules, but I could still be an individual. I could feel heat on my skin and smell fresh grass, and taste food. I could hunger and thirst. I could feel satisfaction, pleasure.” 

“Mm.” 

Crowley breathes in, feels very aware of the cooling liquid on his side — a few drops of Aziraphale’s pleasure. His, now, by conquest. 

“I think it matters that we feel connected through touch,” the angel sighs, above him. “For all the ways humans use their bodies to separate themselves into categories, for all the harm that does, I cannot help but think they are a good thing. They allow us all to experience, and interact, and show love.” 

Crowley hums against his skin. 

“I knew I loved the colour of your hair long before I knew I was in love with you,” Aziraphale murmurs. “Is that odd?” 

Crowley kisses him and doesn’t answer because it feels rhetorical. Of course it’s odd. It’s equally wonderful. That’s the beauty of them. Always has been.

“I used to dream about this,” Aziraphale whispers, stroking an index around the shell of his ear.

Me too, Crowley thinks, closing his eyes. 

Being touched. Being wanted. Being known. 

He’s still hard, pressed into the bunched up duvet. His forehead is resting against Aziraphale’s belly and the angel’s knee is resting against his thigh. Their limbs are tangled. He could spend days like this, Crowley thinks. He used to dream about spending days in bed; ordering food when Aziraphale wanted to eat, bringing him books and listening to him talk, pouring him a bath and washing him from head to toe, relaxing his body, then leading him back to bed and licking him out until his mind stopped functioning. 

“How does your dream end?” He asks the angel. 

“I ask you to sit on the edge of the bed,” Aziraphale tells him, quietly. “Then, I kneel before you.” 

Pulling his face back from his best friend’s belly, Crowley tilts his head back, looks up. 

“Yeah?” 

Aziraphale smiles. 

“Interested?” 

“Jesus fuck, angel…” 

He allows himself to be rolled over and guided towards the edge of the bed by strong hands. He allows Aziraphale to pick his way around him and slip down to the floor. He allows the angel to coax him into position, thumbs stroking over the sharp contours of his hip bones — watches as Aziraphale summons a warm washcloth from the ether and runs it over the side that he had covered in his come. Crowley flexes into it. 

There is immense comfort in the motion, in being cared for, even if he doesn’t wholly manage to banish the embarrassment as the angel’s eyes drag over him. He tries to lessen the feeling by looking at the ceiling, for a while. Then by closing his eyes. He can’t figure out what to do with his hands, though. They’re just hanging there, awkward, by his sides. Then on his belly. Then over his head. 

“Crowley, darling. Here.” Reaching up, Aziraphale ends his indecision by lifting his hands and placing them over his eyes, blocking out the world. “If you are going to be dramatic, you might as well do it properly.” 

A rush of laughter escapes the demon. He feels his cheeks flush red. He keeps the hands there, though, as Aziraphale leans in and kisses him — as the angel lowers his mouth to his neck, and then his chest, and then the soft skin under his ribs. 

His mouth opens, his thighs tauten, but his hands stay clasped over his eyes. 

“My dear, you are so lovely.” 

Crowley feels the weight of the angel push between his legs, hands on the outside of his knees. 

A thought occurs to him. 

“Uh, I haven’t showered since this morning, by the way,” he mumbles. “So, you know, you’re welcome just to use your hands, or-" 

But his personal hygiene routine doesn’t seem to interest Aziraphale in the slightest. Nuzzling a trail of kisses into the crook of his leg, the angel rests his mouth over the tip of his cock and wraps two fingers around the base. A warm circle of restriction that causes a wave of sharp pleasure and dull relief in rapid sequence.

“Let me know what you like,” the angel breathes, warm against his skin. Then he takes Crowley in his mouth and the demon forgets how to speak. 

Aziraphale is hot inside — hot and wet and incredibly eager. He moves slowly, working his way down over the length of Crowleys’ cock, pausing to draw his tongue against him. The pace seems too slow, at first, but half an hour of kissing proves to have been effective foreplay. The build hits him in less than a minute. By the time the angel slides a second hand up, to stroke the skin behind his balls, Crowley is almost panting. 

He’s forgotten about embarrassment. Dropping both hands from his face, he props himself up on his elbows so that he can stare down at the angel, watching the stretch of his lips, and the pull of his cheeks, and the brief glimpses of his perfect pink tongue.

“Mm‘Ziraphale…” Crowley feels Aziraphale’s hand tighten at the root of his cock. Likes it. “Fuck — do that again. Use your hand.” 

He gasps as Aziraphale does as he is told, sighs out his pleasure at the realisation that the angel is taking direction — and not just humouring him, but enjoying it. Nothing about this act feels like reciprocation or duty. Aziraphale is moaning into his skin, wriggling closer within the confines of his thighs. There is pleasure radiating off of him, waves of pure delight. He feels like he’d spend hours there, just sucking him off slowly. Wanting him, Crowley thinks. This is Aziraphale, wanting him. 

The edge of control is a sharp line, hovering in his peripheral vision. 

“Slow,” he murmurs, resisting the instinct to thrust himself forwards and taste release. “Slow, angel…” he wants to make this last. 

Aziraphale glances up at him, between movements, slides his hand back to squeeze gently over his balls. His mouth is stretched full, Crowley thinks, heat welling up within him. His mouth is stretched full and hot around him. His hand is tight and the drop feels endless and it doesn’t matter how slow he goes, Crowley realises, in a rush. He’s got about ten seconds before he’s going to spill all over him. 

_Fuck._

“Aziraphale-" he nudges the angel’s arm, then his head. “Hey.” 

“Mm." Aziraphale pulls back off of him for the space of two seconds, shooting him a grin between harshened breaths. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.” Then he’s leaning back in — still not speeding up — relentlessly pulling him closer to climax.

“Oh, fuck...” 

The angel hums around him. His toes start to curl. 

“Angel…”

“Mmm.” 

His fingers are back in the angel’s hair and his world is drawing in around the edges. Everything around him feels dark and endless. It’s like he’s back in the desert, laid down in Eden under stars, naked before the dawning of the world. Every part of him feels raw, exposed, on show. Then his vision goes and his mind blanks out. 

Pleasure slams through him like an electric charge. The entirety of his existence can be distilled down to the sensations of Aziraphale’s hand on his hip, and the hot wet pressure of his tongue. The rest is lost to squeezing hot pleasure.

“Nnng-” 

Giving an abjectly pathetic whine, he squirms into Aziraphale’s hand as the pleasure crests and falls — relief finally overtaking tension, spreading through him like liquid. Taking a shuddering breath in, he clenches through the last few spasms of his body, and the world slowly filters back in.

He becomes aware of his hands, balled into fists in the bedsheets. He can hear the quiet of the room again, over his harsh breaths and racing heart. He can hear Aziraphale’s breaths, soft and quick through his nose. The angel is still holding him in his mouth, working him with infinitesimal movements, his eyes closed in concentration. As Crowley goes limp and flops back against the bedsheets, he gives one last indulgent suck, then slides off of him. 

“Ugh.” Crowley feels his cock slap wetly back against his belly, feels the angel’s hand slide out to grip his thigh. “Fuck me…” 

They sit and lie together, panting. 

After half a minute, Crowley lifts his head and tries to catch sight of the angel sitting between his legs.

“Hey,” 

A grin breaks across the angel’s face. 

“Hey yourself.”

“You are very good at that.”

“I was working with excellent material.”

“Hah!” Crowley closes his eyes, letting his head drop back against the bedsheets again. His toes are tingling slightly. He suspects being hung over the edge of the bed isn’t helping. “Mmmfh.” 

A warm hand comes down on the top of his thigh, then there is considerable weight placed over it and he can hear the sounds of Aziraphale picking himself up off the floor and standing upright. 

The angel gives a little noise of discomfort as he rises, leaving Crowley feeling distinctly guilty for not having offered him a pillow for his knees. As he climbs onto the bed, however, and begins to pick his way up, the demon is distracted from practicalities. Aziraphale is warm, and flushed, and smells divine. The hormones surging through Crowley are telling him he needs to kiss him again, feel the heat of that mouth, and taste himself on that tongue. It is imperative. Thirty seconds of separation has been too long. 

Floating in a lethargy so severe that he cannot even form words, he reaches out for the angel, trying to guide him in without raising his head.

Aziraphale chuckles.

“You are ridiculous.” 

He follows Crowley’s hands, though. He lets the demon grasp the tops of his shoulders and pull him down, warm mouth opening to kiss Crowley’s neck, then his jaw, and then his mouth. His lips are pink and very wet. Crowley fancies that they feel a bit swollen, but decides he needs more data to know for sure. More kisses, he thinks, with a grin. For science. 

Closing his eyes, he listens to the angel arrange himself — the mattress dipping as the weight of their bodies is distributed. Shoulders press into shoulders, thighs into thighs. Crowley can feel the pale hair of Aziraphale’s chest and belly tickle his skin and slides a hand up to touch it, enjoying the sensation of sweat and rapid-fire heartbeats. It’s all very human. 

“S’a good thing I’ve already had my aneurysm for the day,” he mutters, eventually.

Aziraphale laughs. 

“Have you tried that before?”

“Yeah, but it was nothing like…” Crowley opens his eyes, turns his head to look over at his friend. They watch one another closely for a few seconds. Aziraphale’s pupils are large enough to create perfect reflections of the candles on the windowsill. “It’s different with you.” 

Aziraphale watches him for a moment, then his lips do a little smiley thing and he looks down, turning his attention to sorting a few strands of Crowley’s hair. 

“Well, I expect that’s because you’re in love with me.” He smoothes a curl into the rest of his hair as Crowley’s eyebrows slide up in surprise.

A few seconds pass. 

“Did you just confess my feelings for me?” he asks, incredulous.

“Well, it didn’t seem like you were going to do it,” Aziraphale replies, primly. “And you tend to get caught up in these things and stress. I just thought I’d lend a hand.” 

Crowley stares at him in wonder. 

“You’re such a bastard,” he mutters, eventually. 

Aziraphale’s eyes lift up to him, wide and hopeful. 

“I am in love with you,” Crowley tells him, for good measure. “Have been since before people used those words to say it. So there.”

The angel’s face breaks into a smile. Leaning forwards, he buries his face in the side of Crowley’s head and the demon has to give his heart a few stern words about its mortal limits, before it tries to beat its way out of his chest. It calms after a couple of minutes of being held, however, Aziraphale’s hand still stroking through his hair. 

There is an immense relief in finally having the words spoken, despite the fact that both of them already know. It’s probably one of those earthly things, Crowley thinks, wriggling to press himself closer against the warm body at his side. It’s one thing knowing and existing. It’s quite another to hear and touch and taste. 

He thinks of the early days again, learning how to be in the garden. He thinks of Aziraphale, up on the wall. Thinks of a wing stretching over a stranger, an enemy, to protect him from the rain.

He might rail against the rules, he thinks — might question the The Great Plan and the world around them — but it is Aziraphale who acts. It was Aziraphale who gave away the sword to protect the humans, who showed them a way out of the garden, who gave them a future. It was Aziraphale who threw away his place in Heaven to try and save the Earth. Aziraphale who was willing to do anything to keep this strange, physical world alive.

“You were kind,” he murmurs, into the angel’s skin. “That day we met, you were kind to me, and you didn’t have to be.” 

Aziraphale does not respond to the statement. His fingers keep stroking furrows through Crowley’s hair, though, separating the knots. After the demon is silent for a moment, he dips his head forwards and places a little kiss against his crown, silently asking him to continue. 

“We were destined to oppose, to thwart one another until the end of time,” Crowley murmurs. “And you knew that. You didn’t trust me and you were right not to. I was your enemy. It would have been so easy for you to be cold or distant with me, but you weren’t. You were kind, same as you were with the humans.” He presses his foot against the side of the angel’s calf, feeling their bodies touch along their length, revelling in the connection. “You are worth remembering, angel.”

Aziraphale gives a little sniff and, with a surge of horror, Crowley realises he’s crying. 

Jerking his head back, he looks up at the angel. 

“Hey, Aziraphale, what-"

“Thank you,” the angel sniffs. He’s wearing a little smile with the tears. 

“Bloody hell, mate,” the demon mutters, thrilled and a little afraid that he’s said the wrong thing despite knowing that he can’t have done. The warmness in Aziraphale’s eyes is too real. “This is why I usually let you do all the talking,” he grumbles, squirming up so that their eyes are level. “All goes tits up, otherwise…” 

The angel laughs, a little wetly.

“Crowley, you have never once shut up voluntarily.”

“Hey-" 

There is one of those shivery moments that they’ve shared so many times through history. The angel looks at him, love heavy in his eyes, and Crowley is aware that it is his role to look away, or say something to break the moment. But not anymore, he realises, with a rush. 

“Mind if I kiss you for a bit?” 

“My darling, you can kiss me until eight o’ clock tomorrow morning.”

“Bookshop opening?” He asks, inching forwards, nose nudging into the angel’s. 

“No. Breakfast.”

“Naturally.”

They kiss for a while, then fall asleep wrapped up together in the duvet, heartbeats beating despite not needing to move blood. Lungs drawing breath, despite not needing oxygen. Skin on skin, alive and together, by choice.

.

**Author's Note:**

> There is an illustration for this piece on my [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/CJtnpICF6zW/?igshid=14808ctmioe2j) . Click the link and check it out!
> 
> I am also lurking on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/heycaricari), and [Tumblr](https://heycaricari.tumblr.com/) @heycaricari . Come say hi anytime. :)


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